


The Rose Witch

by Argonometra



Category: Drag-On Dragoon | Drakengard
Genre: Asshole Narrator, Ballads, Dark Ages, F/M, Filk, Folklore, Horror, Prequel, Unreliable Narrator, Verse Poem, bestiality mentioned, discrimination against albinos, gainax ending, narrative poem, to be enjoyed around the fire with a mug of ale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:55:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22952161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argonometra/pseuds/Argonometra
Summary: The witch’s hair was white as snow,Her voice creaking with ill;And weak she laid upon the rack,When guardsmen bound her still.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	The Rose Witch

The witch’s hair was white as snow,

Her voice creaking with ill;

And weak she laid upon the rack,

When guardsmen bound her still.

She’d butchered merchant, man, and beast

And lain with many more.

There wasn’t man that didn’t fear

The witch crossing his door.

Of spells or dark enchantments,

None did her victims see-

But eyes pink as a sunrise

Watched the people bitterly.

For years she’d stalked the kingdom,

Killing what prey she chose.

The witch who mocked crown justice,

The witch with eyes of rose.

And all that land lay empty

Touched only by the sun.

For even wyrms and outlaws fled

Before that savage one!

But then the knights were summoned

To track her to her den.

They searched manor and marketplace

They searched through moor and fen.

They found her in a looted house

Upon a bloodstained bed;

She’d left the corpses where they fell,

Those of the household’s dead.

They thought the witch was slumbering.

But as they raised their swords,

She scoffed; “Are _you_ your monarch’s best?

Has Gurei sent more swords?”

“He sent not healers to this land,

Or grain to feed the ill.

He sent his dregs to put me down-

Their corpses lie here still.”

And then they smelled the plague around,

The rot upon her breath.

For God Himself had intervened

To force this maiden’s death.

The knights had thought to kill her,

And still their fearful hearts-

“A live witch means more money,

More glory on our parts.”

And so they dragged the captive back.

She uttered not a word.

Except to cough her lifeblood out,

Or croak like a seabird.

Ofttimes they heard a rustling

Where there was naught to make.

And light gleamed in her dying eyes

More fearsome than the stake.

The scent of roses wafted

When last they tied her down.

A spectacle for every man

And child of the town.

And tied was she with rebels

Who’d sought to kill the king.

(And even in that lightless muck,

The girls were heard to sing!)

And proving clear her witchery,

Rose-Eyes was last to die,

Though others had been caught first;

Though fever gleamed her eye.

But when she’d spat her final breath,

Blood mingling with the rain,

A flower sprouted in her eye-

Its petals brushed her mane.

And flowers stand where city stood,

And form a fragrant hell.

And in it stalks the witch of rose-

A monster men know well.

**Author's Note:**

> I always wondered what Zero's execution would look like to the average peasant.
> 
> EDIT: Fuck. I just realized that the line "Though that five had been tortured" makes no sense contextually, so I replaced it with "Though others had been caught first".


End file.
